


A Spectacular Fashion

by nsthk



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Gap Filler, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2742860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nsthk/pseuds/nsthk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gap filler for Don-Sloan relationship along Season 2. Still incomplete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fan fiction ever. And English is not my first language (so there must be so many grammatical errors). And Aaron Sorkin rocks.

“No, no,” Don stopped the man that Sloan had just punched. His stare was saying it out loud, ‘Don’t mess with her.’ 

The asshole was Sloan’s ex; the one who spread out nude pictures of her. The lowest of the lows. Don could not believe why a woman as smart as Sloan could be fooled to date him. But just now, the asshole’s bleeding nose made Don feel like the happiest man on earth. He suddenly had this strange, proud, father-like feeling.  
Slowly, he turned around and walked out of the room. He followed Sloan to the elevator, leaving the slim-fit-shirted-asshole groaning in pain. The elevator didn’t take too long. The doors were opened, but there she was, just standing and not entering the elevator. She froze.

Realizing that Sloan had momentarily stopped functioning, Don pressed down button to keep the doors open. “Sloan,” he quietly called her. Sloan turned her face to him so now he could see the vague look on her face. He gestured to the elevator. “Let’s get going,” he said.

“Do you want to have drinks?” Don asked after they got inside the elevator. It was almost midnight, there was just the two of them in the elevator. 

“Don’t you have a show to run?” asked Sloan, still with a flat face.

“I got Mac to cover for me,” Don already asked Mac’s help when he left the office with Sloan. “You owe me one, Keefer,” that was all Mac said, but she said it with a smile so Don knew that he would not have to worry. 

Sloan didn’t respond to his statement. She just stared straight to either the closed door or the elevator buttons or a ghost, Don could not be sure. Then after what it seemed like forever, the elevator finally hit the ground floor and Don decided to take a chance, “Hang Chew’s?”

“Do we really have other options?”

“Then Hang Chew’s it is.”

They were only a block away from ACN office, so Hang Chew’s was just a few minutes’ walk. As they entered the place, Don took a quick scan. Karaoke stage was still going, but the bar wasn’t too packed. He could see Tess, Martin, and Tamara on a corner couch, drinking and laughing. They were probably talking over fake Kouri family that almost went on air, seeing how Martin did most of the talking. Other than those three, he didn’t see anyone from the office. 

Sloan chose to sit at the bar table, so Don followed. The second she got seated, Sloan blurted out, “What have I done, Don? I shouldn’t have punched him. And took a picture of him? In front his colleagues? Oh my God. I went too far, didn’t I?”

“Well, you went south and kicked his nuts, so I think you went just to the right direction,” Don’s grin widened. He ordered two gin-and-tonics for both of them.

The bartender handed out their drinks. “I made it to rage phase. It’s supposed to be over, but why do I still have this confusing, maddening, inexplicable feeling?” Sloan sipped her drink with puzzled look.

“To tell you the truth, rage is not a final phase. There’s a next phase called ‘remorse’.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about that earlier?”

“You’re like sixteen times smarter than me, Sloan. I can’t put anything in your head.”

“But, I’m socially inept!”

Don stared at her for a moment. He could see that Sloan was obviously freaking out for feeling something she could not put her logic into. 

“Okay,” he said, “I am telling you now. You came to the rage phase and you did what rage told you to. You did something very unusual and unfamiliar, that you started to doubt if you had done the right thing. So for that, you feel remorse.”

“You just made me feel worse, Keefer.”

“Nah... You’ll get through this. And when you do, you finally come the final stage....”

“It better be good,” Sloan crossed.

“...called ‘acceptance’. You’ll get to acceptance phase. Now, relax, enjoy your drink, you’ll get there.”

“You’re not going anywhere until I get there.” 

“I won’t,” Don chuckled.

“I mean it!” Sloan gave him her signature do-it-or-I-will-kill-you look.

Don looked at her eyes and said without blinking, “I won’t.” 

Sloan waited, as if it was a pause, not a period after his sentence. But it was not a pause. He meant it. He meant every word he said, including the thing he said earlier that night about her being impressive. 

“Don’t you have a show to run?” Sloan asked again, but this time, it was different. Don knew she was not worrying about the show. It was neither doubt, nor distrust. It was her not having a high value of herself again; thinking that he better be somewhere else doing any other thing that was more important than being there with her. He would not be the one to let her think that way. He would never ever be the man to make Sloan feeling disposable and worthless, the way that asshole in arbitrage did.

“I’m here, Sloan,” he said softly.

“Thank you,” she said eventually, facing away from him.

“Anytime. Just don’t make a habit out of it,” Don sipped his drink, then the two sat in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, pal!” said Sloan as she abruptly entered Don’s office without knocking. She never knocked and Don never said he minded. Even after the incident with Zane, her EP who dragged her across the newsroom and argued with Don, or when she used his office as a place to hide from everyone after that asshole Scott spread nude pictures of her, Don never said he minded. So Sloan took it that his door was always open for anything she wanted in anytime she needed.

He didn’t lift his head from what looked like a pile of news materials his staff gave him every morning when he replied, “What is it, pal?”

“You’re busy?” she asked.

“Staff meeting in 20 minutes.”

“Okay. As for this weekend, will you still be busy?”

“No. I’m off the whole weekend. What is it?”

“John Carter is opening this weekend. Care to accompany me?”

Don finally lifted his head, “Accompany you? Watching John Carter?”

“Yeah, why?” Sloan gave him an innocent look. As innocent as she could. Don never had to know that she prepared that conversation the whole morning. She was socially inept, so asking men to go out was a big deal for her. Also, she _was_ Sloan Sabbith. Men were getting in line to ask her out, not the other way around. Men. Countless men. Countless mentally healthy heterosexual men. Except this one in front of her.

It had been two years since the first time she laid eyes on him. After two years being a financial correspondent – working as a news correspondent, she believed, would have been far better than being a money machine on Wallstreet – she’d found her way to have her own screen time for Market Wrap-Up. He remembered Dana, her EP at that time, gave her a tour around the newsroom where she got introduced to Don. At that time, Don was a senior producer for News Night. He was this kind of guy who wouldn’t call a girl in the morning after spending a night together. Sloan wasn’t looking for something serious either, but guys like Don should have been the one to ask her; not the other way around. So she waited. But he never asked.

Until she witnessed him dating Maggie, a sweet innocent intern back then and a deviation from his usual dating pattern. She thought it would be temporary, but the on-and-off-again relationship lasted for more than a year. After they spent more time working together, as she sometimes filled in for Elliott with Don as the executive producer, she noticed something about Don that might have been overlooked; either by her or by anyone else. She started to understand the reason why he dated Maggie.

It had been six months since she told Don about her theory for his relationship with Maggie. In response, Don asked why she had been single and she replied, “Because you never asked me out.” It had been five months since Don finally broke up with Maggie – for good – and two weeks since Don said she was impressive. Still, nothing big had happened, aside from occasional drink and casual lunch every now and then. Not that she had stopped dating other men since then, although sometimes she did that only to see Don’s reaction. Don clearly had a problem when she got out with Nina’s book agent and some other men who got out with her. But up until then, he had never taken a chance to ask her out. So she tried another way, she decided to ask him out.

Don sat back, completely stopping from what he was doing. “You want to watch John Carter? Why?” asked Don, curious.

“Disney invested $250 million dollar in that movie and the company stated that they expected to lose $200 million on it. I think it would make a good story. But before dipping any finger, I need to see what it’s about,” Sloan explained.

“And you want to go with me?” Don looked puzzled.

“Watching this with a man won’t make a good date, Mac’s already got a plan, and I don’t really have other friends, so there’s you,” Sloan spent the whole morning constructing this excuse because she knew Don would ask. She also already made sure that Mac couldn’t go with her, and by making sure it meant dropping by to her office and saying, “Mac, if anyone ever asked you what you’d be doing this weekend, you should answer that you have a plan. Any plan will do.” Mac was only staring at her with confused look and muttering ‘okay’ when Sloan did that.

“I’m a man!” Don objected.

“But going out with you is not a date, so that doesn’t count,” said Sloan, secretly amazed of how well she made up this bullshit. But Don looked shocked hearing her answer and it made Sloan instantly regret what she was just saying.

“So? Don? Are you interested?” Sloan asked hesitantly.

“Alright. Let’s see it,” Don said casually.

 “Great. I’ll text you where and when,” said Sloan with an awkward smile.


	3. Chapter 3

Rundown meeting was only ten minutes away, but Don could not seem to get his head on the right track. He shifted through the materials his staff had given him without even noticing what those were about. The only thing that he could think of was the conversation he had with Sloan just a few minutes earlier. It seemed like he couldn’t prevent himself from repeating Sloan’s sentence to him: “...going out with you is not a date.” It kept repeating itself inside Don’s head like a broken record.

Sloan stopped by at Don’s office a few minutes ago, asking him to accompany her to see John Carter that weekend. She said she asked him because seeing the movie with a guy wouldn’t be a good date and Mac, her only friend, already had plans.

Going out with him wasn’t counted as a date for Sloan. It looked like Don was trapped in the friend zone. He knew he moved too slowly, but not because he hadn’t been attracted to Sloan. No man in his right mind would think that Sloan was unattractive. He remembered clearly the first time Sloan walked into his newsroom two years ago. A rumor had travelled around for a week that a financial correspondent, someone with PhD in economics from Duke that could have been making millions working at Wallstreet, was being transferred to do market review. Don never thought that the said correspondent would have legs like a Victoria’s Secret model with shining black hair and exotic look hinting an Asian descent. Dana, Market Wrap-Up’s EP at that time, took her around for office tour. Don couldn’t take his eyes off her but he heard his head saying, “No, Don, she’s way out of your league.”

So he stayed out of her radar. She dated Maggie instead, who was an intern then. A much safer and a rational choice to clear his reputation. Until Mac brought her to prime time to do economic segments and Charlie decided to give her more airtime by letting her fill in for Elliott form time to time. Don was delighted, because he finally got the chance to get to know her, but also conflicted because he already committed to himself to get serious with Maggie.

Conscience took over. He decided to only befriend Sloan. She has an interesting personality after all. Underneath her cold exterior, she was this ordinary girl, socially awkward and sometimes naive. Maybe that was the quality that made her be able look right through him. A few months ago, she surprised him by saying that dating Maggie was only a way to prove people that he was ‘a good guy’. The statement that ended up with him asking why he was still single and her answering that it was because he never had asked her out.

It was the moment. ‘The’ moment. She was right about his relationship with Maggie, but he chose to ignore her. He could have been broken up with Maggie, told her the truth that he never loved her, and asked Sloan out. He might seem like an asshole, but maybe it wouldn’t do so much damage. Yet his selfishness, his ego wanted people to see him as the good guy who did the right thing. Who would have known that his trying to be the good guy could lead to this kind of disaster?

Now, everything was a mess. He had embarrassed Sloan by not responding to her confession. He had ruined Maggie’s life. He had led Jim to do stupid thing touring with Romney bus. He now believed that office romance could only lead to disaster.

“Don,” called Mac, woke him up from his thought. “Ready for rundown meeting?”

Don just nodded, gathered his materials, and stood up from his chair.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mac.

“Nah. Nothing.”

“You sure? You look like you're ready to eat that table in front of you.”

“I’m always ready to eat anything in front of me.”

“Alright, if you’re sure,” she shrugged.

Mac was heading out his office when Don suddenly remembered something. He said, “Actually, Mac, there’s something.”

Mac turned around and shot him a questioning look. “Do you have plans this weekend?” Don asked her.

Mac frowned, “Why are people suddenly curious about my weekend plan?”

“I’m not the only one asking?”

“Sloan asked a while ago.”

“And... your answer was?”

“I didn’t get the chance to answer. She said, if anyone asked me about my plans for weekend, I should answer that I’ll be busy this weekend.”

Don took a second to process Mac’s answer, then he chuckled. “What?” asked confused Mac.

Don could feel himself smiling beyond his control. It looked like he wasn’t in the friend zone after all.

“Nothing, Mac, nothing. Well, you should make plans, though. Go out and see someone,” Don walked past Mac, out from his office.

“Hey, I do have plans!” Mac protested and followed him to the conference room.


End file.
